High School Son is Bored Already

Sadly, school is often boring especially to modern teenagers. Most high schoolers enjoy the social scene of high school and tolerate the boring classes. They look forward to social interaction with their peers and sometimes sleep with their eyes open in classes.

If he’s complaining about essentially every class being boring, I’d hesitate before I got in touch with school about that. It’s kind of like complaining about the cold in wintertime or the heat in the summer and thinking there’s something to do about it.

For my own high school age son, I try to let him have the weekends filled up with the things he enjoys. He also takes martial arts lessons during the week to give him something to look forward to as he goes through the week of school which he too mostly finds boring.

Mamm;

Contact the teachers next week, and discuss your concerns about your son. It is never too early. Otherwise, he will just be transparent to the school, ignored as he struggles through. Nip the problem now ! You will feel good about it.

SMACK HIM! Then tell him tough.

When my kid is bored, it’s often because the work is too easy and she’s not being challenged enough. Start of year often includes a lot of review from past, so it may be more boring for some kids.

In line with prior posts, yeah, its partly a teenage thing. First few weeks are review-I wouldnt wait forever but at least let them start new material and see if things pick up. I imagine your school has different levels for math and language and maybe he needs to be bumped up in at least those classes

My 10 yr old has the ADD dx, but my 17 yr old might as well have IMO.Yet he manages without intervention so I just let him know there is help available if he hits a wall. He thrives on working after school. He put in at least 35 hrs/week last year(at a car wash-very physical) and kept a full class load and did great. I would have been comatose with exhaustion.

dont be afraid to keep him busy-maybe busier than seems right to you. Yeah, schoolwork is a priority but there can be roundabout ways of getting there like more afterschool activities-sports, karate, music lessons, a part time job-even very physical labor around the house for a few bucks

I teach in high school and I would say that you can’t blame everything on ADD. Kids, these days, demand to be entertained and anything that is isn’t entertaining, is boring. Kids never just do nothing or even sit and read a book. They are always on the computer with instant messenger, watching videos or playing video games. When my kids, in school, say they are bored, I just tell them that everything about learning isn’t supposed to be entertaining and neither is life in general. We have really spoiled our kids and when I read some of these posts about all of the misbehavior that is being attributed to ADD, and parents are excusing the kids, I just am amazed.

I teach 11th grade English and reading. I am teaching in an over crowded school until a new high school opens next year. I have 13 in my English class and the classroom isn’t very big. I suppose that I have at least 4 ADD kids in my class and only one is on meds. All of the kids have a reputation of being behavior issues. I just told them that I didn’t have time to deal with their behaviors so I won’t, if they act up, they will leave my class, will be given a 0 for the day and they will be accountable for that day’s classwork. Oh, by the way, we have 96 minutes blocks. I know these kids, they know that I am serious and they have been controlling their behavior. They have to pass the 11th grade state test, SOLs, in order to receive a standard diploma. I think that most of what I read in these posts could be handled with good old fashion consequenses for the child’s behavior instead of blaming it on ADD. Certainly not going to help the child in later life by excusing it or blaming it on a condition.

I would be careful in making a conclusion into why your son finds school boring. My son would sometimes make comments like that and when I dug deeper I found he was more likely to say this when he was really struggling. What teen wants to say I don’t get this? They would rather say I did not do that assignment or did not pay attention because it was boring. It could also be because the class is moving to slow, this is the case with my daughter. My daughter is like a sponge and picks things up very quickly. She complains that the teachers go to slowly and that they are always reteaching things. She says this makes school very boring. We find that supplementing what she does at school at home really helps. She has her own telescope, microscope, other science items, high level books ect. When we work on homework we sometimes supplement it by asking more in depth questions. There are many reasons why the student might be “bored”, they can’t see or follow well the activities of the classroom, not hear well due to noise level or other factors, not understand the subject matter or might feel challenged. It is true what Shay says that our society has made our kids need constant stimulation and entertainment but we need to make sure there is not another correctable reason before we say it is due to todays society.